Author: Andrew Caldwell

Occasional flash floodwaters from the Lick Creek drainage basin aren’t the only thing rising in Midtown’s Evergreen Historic District.

Tempers are also rising in response to a city plan to demolish some Evergreen homes through voluntary buyouts. On September 29th, city engineers and representatives from Tetra Tech, an engineering firm hired to mitigate the years-long Lick Creek flooding problem, shared details of the plan at a public meeting at Snowden School.

“We believe buyouts are part of a comprehensive solution for the Lick Creek drainage basin, particularly in the most floodprone areas of Royster Bayou and for homes where flooding is exasperated due to their location below the bank top elevation of an adjacent creek,” reads a report by Tetra Tech.

According to Tetra Tech’s plan, after purchasing property in the Lick Creek basin, houses would be demolished to make way for underground retention basins to collect floodwaters. Buyout locations include stretches along Auburndale, Avalon, and Angelus in the Evergreen district.

“These are voluntary buyouts,” said John Cameron, the city’s deputy engineer. “In the past, when FEMA offered potential grant money to do buyouts, there were some residents who were interested in taking the offer. But most of them did not meet FEMA’s conditions [which included at least 50 percent property damage from flooding events].”

Since July 2010, Memphis has received about $6.2 million in disaster recovery funds from the federal Community Development Block Grant. With that money, Cameron said, “Memphis can offer buyouts without meeting FEMA’s qualifications.”

Though the proposed buyouts are optional, some residents are skeptical. John Doyle Stuart, who has lived in the Evergreen district for nearly 35 years, points to the I-40 buyouts in the 1970s as an example of voluntary buyouts turning into eminent domain. He said there’s too little evidence supporting the effectiveness of a buyout strategy.

“[The city is basing its decision] on models and guesses,” Stuart said. “It can’t address the real problem if there’s no way to say if the plan will actually work. Until they put in a 21st-century drainage system [replacing the nearly century-old system that has fallen into disrepair], don’t tell me that you’re going to start tearing down houses.”

Apart from the destruction of homes, Stuart is concerned with the welfare of his neighbors whose homes are in the proposed buyout locations.

“City buyouts would almost certainly be at market value, which in most cases wouldn’t meet residents’ mortgages, leaving them to pay the difference,” Stuart said. “You can’t tear down communities to make something green. It’s not an even pay off.”

Buyouts won’t likely begin for at least six months, and Tetra Tech is projecting the total cost of the mitigation plan to fall between $30 million and $40 million.

This cost includes other less controversial options, such as the construction of a basin underneath the proposed Overton Square parking garage and the lowering of playing fields at Snowden School and Memphis Catholic High School to serve as above-ground retention basins during heavy rainfalls.

As for the possible demolition of homes in the Evergreen district, Cameron said nothing is set in stone: “We’re currently looking at six to eight locations, but we’re still gauging public opinion at this point.”

Last Friday evening, local teachers, students, lawyers, retirees, parents, and grandparents became activists.

They gathered in Overton Park for the first Occupy Memphis meeting, held in response to the national Occupy Wall Street movement in which hundreds dissatisfied with the “one percent” of people who control the financial and political realms in the U.S. have been camping in a park adjacent to New York’s financial district for weeks.

The protesters consider themselves the “99 percent,” meaning the majority of Americans who don’t hold financial or political power. According to Adbusters, the magazine that inspired the action in New York, the central demand of the protests is to convince President Barack Obama to “ordain a presidential commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington.” But since the protests have spread across the country, the focus has become more about showing a general disdain for social inequality and corporate greed.

“[The Occupy movement] is about making the changes in the United States to equalize things so that our children will be able to realize the American Dream,” said one protester at Friday’s Memphis gathering, which was organized by the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center.

When the meeting began at 6 p.m., a seemingly uncomfortable group of about 20 people sat around a row of picnic tables, perhaps uncertain of what the night would bring. But as the sun set on Overton Park, and as the group grew more confident in their discussion, the ranks swelled to about 70 people. As people introduced themselves, they followed their name with “I’m a proud member of the 99 percent.”

“We’ve been following what’s been happening on Wall Street,” said Jacob Flowers, executive director of the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center. “A lot of people have been interested in supporting what’s taking place [in New York]. We started getting calls and emails late last week from our members wondering if there’d be Memphis support for [Occupy Wall Street].”

Since it began in New York City on September 17th, the Occupy movement has spread to roughly 40 cities across the U.S. with most gatherings organized through Twitter and Facebook.

While Occupy Wall Street issued a list of demands last week, which included shutting down Wall Street and the Capitol building in Washington for a day, Occupy Memphis is still in the planning stage.

Occupying various sites in Memphis to holding simple candlelight vigils were among the ideas tossed around at Friday’s meeting. The group never came to a consensus, but all agreed that whatever action the group takes has to be nonviolent.

“We want to make our point, but we don’t want to cause any damage. We don’t want people to get hurt,” said one person in attendance.

“Everyone in this city is an ally of ours,” said another. “I don’t think there’s a single one-percenter in Memphis, so that means 100 percent of the people of this city are the reason we’re here. We’re not here for ourselves but for those who can’t take the time to be here.”

In New York, there have been several instances of police brutality. In late September, a group of unarmed female protesters were rounded up in a mesh pen by New York police officers and sprayed with mace. And there have been more frequent arrests, including 700 last Sunday, when members of Occupy Wall Street marched onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

Though those at the Occupy Memphis meeting were uncertain how a local movement will play out, they remained steadfast in their commitment.

Said one woman at the meeting: “[Memphis] will be the canary in the coal mine for what’s going to happen to the rest of the country.”

Information on future meetings or actions of Occupy Memphis may be found on their website at occupymemphis.tumblr.com or on the group’s Facebook page.

Two painted-white bikes, one chained to a pole outside the Hi-Tone Cafe and one in Overton Square, mark the places where cyclist Chris Davidson began and ended the journey that killed him.

But the bikes are more than memorials to a fallen Midtown cyclist. They’re also cries for change.

In the early hours of August 12th, 37-year-old Davidson set off on his bike after a rock show at the Hi-Tone. Somewhere near the corner of Cooper and Madison, he was struck by a hit-and-run driver. Davidson was able to get back on his bike and ride to his girlfriend’s house but died later from his injuries.

Last week, cyclists Adam Hite and Leila Hamdan, both friends of Davidson, installed the “ghost bikes” at both locations.

“[The bikes] serve as a memorial to Chris and as a reminder to motorists of cyclists’ right of travel,” Hite said.

Over the past decade, similar ghost bikes have been installed across the world at sites where cyclists were killed by vehicles. They’re often adorned with signs that read, “A cyclist was struck here.” The National Ornamental Metal Museum is currently working on a set of bronze plaques to be placed on the two ghost bikes honoring Davidson.

“We’re hoping motorists will see the bikes and remember what happened,” Hamdan said. “And the next time they come around a corner and find a cyclist on the road, they’ll respect that rider’s rights.”

But since Davidson’s death more than three weeks ago, Hamdan has seen little (if any) change in the way Memphis drivers behave around cyclists.

“There’s definitely a lot of momentum [to promote safety for cyclists] that’s come out of this tragedy, especially among Chris’ friends and the bike community,” Hamdan said.

“The timing is really interesting with the debate over the Madison bike lanes going on,” Hite said. “I think bike lanes are extremely important for the city when there are a lot of people who commute by bike.”

For the past several months, cycling advocates and a few Madison Avenue business owners have butted heads over the city’s proposal to add dedicated bike lanes along a stretch of Madison. Mayor A C Wharton is expected to make a decision on whether to add lanes or simply add “share the road” signage by this fall. Last Friday, nearly 50 cyclists gathered in Overton Square across the street from where Davidson was struck for a rally advocating for dedicated bike lanes along Madison.

Others are stepping forward with other ways to remember Davidson and highlight the need for change. Angela Russell, owner of Underground Art, hung posters around town calling for information on the motorist who hit Davidson. She’s also placed ads in the Flyer with messages like, “On August 12, a hit and run killed our friend.”

Last Thursday, Underground Art provided free tattoos of Davidson’s catchphrase, “Man What!,” dedicating the day’s tips to the Davidson family.

Even with the swelling ranks fighting for bicycle and pedestrian safety in Memphis, more is needed to create change, Hamdan said: “Cyclists fighting for cyclists isn’t enough. We need the city to show some leadership.”

The newly repaved and repainted Front St. now features “sharrows,” the most recent device used in the push to make Memphis streets more bike-friendly.

Sharrows, or shared lane markings, are the familiar bicycle icon painted in dedicated bike lanes but are instead placed within the automobile lane. And while the markings were approved nationally in 2009, this is their first appearance here. For Memphis, the Front St. sharrows will serve as an acid test for the future.

“There are two big benefits to using sharrows,” said Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s bicycle/pedestrian coordinator. “They give cyclists traveling in shared lanes greater visibility to motorists, and it helps position cyclists by telling them exactly where to ride in the street: directly on top of the markings.”

Front St. was the obvious choice for the first sharrow markings, Wagenschutz said. “[Front] is far too narrow for a dedicated bike lane, and residents and business owners [along Front] expressed their need to maintain on-street parking.”

The markings along Front have been placed near the center of the lane — far enough from cars parked along the curb so bicyclists can avoid any opening doors but not too close to the median, allowing motorists ample room to pass.

The city has no immediate plans for sharrows on other Memphis streets, and their placement will be decided on a case-by-case basis, Wagenschutz said. “Front was ideal in that it has low traffic speed and volume, which is what we’ll look for in the future. We want to use sharrows where there’s a transition between street conditions.”

Wagenschutz said sharrows will be most helpful where a street with a dedicated bike lane narrows to the point where that bike lane couldn’t feasibly continue, as on Front, and cyclists are forced into a shared lane with motorists.

Tennessee law requires motorists to allow at least three feet when passing cyclists. Penalties for violating that law were increased this summer, and though there is no additional fine for violations on roads with sharrows, the markings leave negligent motorists with few excuses.

Since the pedestrian/cyclist coordinator position was created less than a year ago, Wagenschutz, with the help of the cycling community, has established nearly 25 miles of dedicated bike lanes around town, and he’s been working to educate the community on bicycle safety.

In addition to the popular weekly safety classes led by Wagenschutz in locations around the city, he has worked with groups like Livable Memphis, among others, to distribute safety information to cyclists along bike lanes and greenlines.

“There’s definitely a market for [bike safety classes], and we’re always trying to make improvements on what we’ve got. We’re trying to avoid another tragedy with these programs, bike lanes, and sharrows,” Wagenschutz said, referring to the recent hit-and-run death of cyclist Chris Davidson. Davidson was struck by a vehicle near Cooper and Madison earlier this month.